Achieve Crowdsourced Innovation By Doing This

Organizations can have a rough time getting ideas from its members, and the larger they are the more difficult it becomes.

You have probably heard of that one company that found a great idea and in an unlikely place, or an individual that wacs overlooked and came up with the great concept.

The fact of the matter is great ideas can come from anyone, and we end up looking at a small few to determine where an organization is heading.

Organizations have to start embracing ideas from everyone, and though it may seem cumbersome people have to begin managing ideas from a large group more effectively.

Here are some tips to crowdsource innovation within your organization:

Use Ice-Breakers To Get The Staff Comfortable

When two people form a bond their relationship is built on trust and comfort; the same would apply to a group big or small.

Getting-to-know-you-games, also known as icebreakers, help people get a feel for one another. Though it may seem like a waste of time, it’ll enable management or leaders get a feel for their organization and see who are the introverts and extroverts of their group.

Getting to know the personality types of people within your group will allow you to get a feel of discreet or blunt to be with them.

Not only that, it’ll give people comfort and giving the ideas that they have to a larger group.

If you want to get the best ideas you have to gain trust within the group.

It is not an overnight thing or something that can be rushed, but the sooner you work on it the better ideas you have long-term.

Depending on your budget you can go about it by having a small retreat, or doing something at the office, or meeting place, that’s stems away from doing the usual work that is done.

Whatever it may be, make sure that it sticks to the culture of the team that you’ve created and that it is aligned with your core values.

Online Ideation & Brainstorming

The best way to improve ideation is through brainstorming, the two main rules of brainstorming goes as follow:

1. Defer judgment – don’t get upset when people say bad ideas.
2. Reach for quantity – come up with as many ideas as possible.

When managing a vast amount of ideas to make it tricky to focus on what you are going to do next, along with determining which ideas are the best.

The major breakthrough with using an idea generation tool is the fact that you are able to come up with more ideas in a shorter amount of time. The benefit of that is that you’re able to get an overall view of what people think is the best route for the team.

Not to mention you can find out the trends in your organization, and things to improve upon.
Having crowdsourced innovation, or innovation that is done through brainstorming, allows for the best and brightest ideas to prosper like never before.

The notion of great ideas coming from unlikely of places gets put on the back burner, as you are able to get a plethora of great ideas instantly.

Managing all of this information can be quite difficult if you don’t have the right tools, which is why it is a safe investment to purchase a tool that can manage the many ideas you have obtained, and give you quantified data to help you choose the right one.

Upon making the decision to follow a crowdsourced idea, you must set up an action plan that’ll help determine how to execute.

Set Up An Action Plan To For Your Idea

There is an old saying that goes: action creates attraction.

This holds true in the business world, tech sector, and various other industries. Whatever idea it is that you and your organization may be working on, the most important thing is to start preparing properly and make sure that you have an action plan set in place in order to get things going.

Setting key performance indicators to your project will give you measurable goals to attain in order to make sure that it is a success.

The mistake that people make often is that they aren’t realistic with some of their goals. So make sure to not only be specific but be realistic when it comes to setting goals for your concept.

Setting measurable milestones or goals will help you with an incremental growth, of course, there is a rare occasion that you may have a huge amount of growth and a short amount of time, but do not set that as a realistic approach to your plan.

When planning, make sure to break off large pieces of the project into smaller ones and have multiple people work on it. The more intricacies a project may have, the more difficult it is to reach a goal.

Though you may have a set date on a project if your goals are not complete it is not done yet.

To sum it up one last time, if you want to come up and pick the best crowdsourced idea from your group:

• Create a comfortable setting by breaking the ice
• Gather all the ideas that you can
• Decide (as an organization) which ones are the best
• Set up an action plan
• Set goals for your plans
• Do the work and reach your goals

Of course, it is easier said than done, but just keep the goal in mind and keep everyone motivated in you’ll reach it.

Is Your Organization Achieving Crowdsourced Innovation?

What means are you using to get the best ideas out of people? Is your organization, department, or company, doing anything to get the wisdom of the crowd? Let us know in the comments below.

Let us know in the comments below.

We would love nothing more than for you to hear everyone’s ideas out in order to achieve crowdsourced innovation.